Why we chose Happy Pet tech for pet grooming and inventory

When I stepped into Pet Warehouse - the founder Manju Reddy and I sat down to decide on scaling our single store to multistore. We had a loyal customer base from single store and we had become the go-to pet store in the heart of Bangalore, Indiranagar. 

Very early on, we knew that for a pet store to make financial sense we needed to replicate our successful single store model to multi store in different locations in Bangalore.

 

The start:

To get started - we built an online presence for Pet Warehouse. Anil and I had ample experience helping businesses jump online. From social media to a fully functional Shopify website the initial journey was relatively smooth.

 

Challenges:

I soon realized I was straying from my original plan and getting deeply involved in the store's daily operations. I needed to support Manju in managing the workload and various challenges, including customers missing appointments, staff taking unplanned leaves, and inconsistent inventory availability. 

Our grooming services were often underbooked, and at times we had too many customers show up simultaneously. We also faced issues with inventory management, leading to shortages and excesses. When we ran out of stock, customers looked elsewhere, and some products generated no profit due to necessary discounts before expiry.

Manju and I explored various software solutions to help us escape the daily grind of problem solving. We quickly realized that most available options were designed for other industries, leaving the pet care sector to adapt and make do with these tools.

 

The Solution:

We were at a crossroads. We knew that the answer to our problems lay in getting software that worked for us. Our advisor Anil Reddy saw huge potential for change in how the industry operated. Rather than manage with half baked solutions, he would build software that would specifically address problems of pet care retail, pet parents and the pets themselves.

With the support of the Pet Warehouse team and customers Anil started designing and developing solutions that were meant for the pet eco system specifically. The biggest challenges that we needed to address were with inventory management and grooming services and that's what Happy Pet took up as their first challenge.

I will detail below how we have worked with Anil and the team at Happy Pet Tech for them to build solutions for our industry's problems and how we got on track with our expansion plans.

 

Grooming Management System:

Grooming services are what helps most stores make a profit. Scaling these services across different locations without the right tools means the same problems would spread to all the locations. Improving appointment scheduling, managing cancellations, reducing no shows, streamlining staff allocation, nullifying missed items in invoices and eliminating unsigned service-agreements were tackled along this journey.

The How of it! Matching customers with their favourite pet groomers while ensuring that scheduling is digitized has gone a long way in increasing customer delight. Regular whatsapp reminders to the customers have reduced no shows and cancellations. Most importantly, we can provide customized services to each pet. Each pet's preferences, ailments and behaviours are recorded on the software. The mobile app for the groomers ensures that there is seamless relay in information from and to the individual who actually works with the pets. Even better - this information does not leave when the groomers eventually decide to leave.

 

Inventory:

There are three primary areas in inventory management that we were having trouble with.

• Mismatch between demand and supply and reducing the problem of expiring products
• Wastage caused by returns or damaged packaging
• Invoice related - add ons were not billed during service delivery or the wrong SKUs were being billed at the wrong price.

Inventory management is equally important in service delivery. Linking all the touch points helped us solve that problem. An up-to-date dashboard warned us about low stock levels and expiring products. Thus we are now able to better understand our sales patterns and plan ahead. The right planning ensures that every customer that walks into the store leaves with what they came in looking for.

You want to know the kicker - the same system is integrated with Shopify and keeps our e-commerce website up-to-date!

 

The Business Impact:

Today - every store is managed with Happy Pet Tech`s software solutions. We do not have to be involved with the little things on a daily basis. We trust our people and give them the right information at the right time and enable them to run daily ops. By freeing ourselves up, we have now successfully opened up our 5th store in Whitefield and are well on our way to drawing up final plans to open the next 3 stores within a year.

Does that mean we are not involved - not at all. We use the mobile apps to stay updated with all our stores and staff wherever we are. We continue to work with the team at Happy Pet to improve the apps on a regular basis. From daily reports to stock predictions we have multiple new features in the pipeline that will help us further accelerate our growth plans. 

Was tech the sole reason we were able to scale - no. Technology will never replace the founder's gut feeling and the human intelligence of the rest of the team and staff. But technology can take away the little annoying problems and give you the right information to make better decisions.

 

Post Credits:

I would like to thank Anil and the team at Happy Pet for working so closely with us in building solutions that actually work for us in the pet care sector. I even use their pet parent app to manage the activities and records of my two puppies at home. Their technology solutions let you really appreciate why you got into the pet care space - to be closer to pets.